Donald Trump was so angry when the guilty verdict was read aloud at his New York hush money trial last month that he was heard afterwards subjecting Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, to a foul-mouthed rant by phone, according to a new report.
Politico’s Playbook newsletter recounts that the GOP presidential contender was overheard “dropping frequent F-bombs” in his call with Johnson on May 30 as he told the speaker: “We have to overturn this.”
Trump was fuming after a jury of 12 Manhattanites found him guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to prevent her allegation of an extramarital affair in summer 2006 getting out and damaging his chances of winning the 2016 presidential election against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
The defendant repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and that the liaison itself ever happened, persisting in claiming that the whole case against him was “rigged” by a “corrupt” district attorney and his political enemies and was presided over by a “highly conflicted” judge.
His complaints ultimately cost him $10,000 in fines for contempt of court as he repeatedly violated the gag order placed upon him by Judge Juan Merchan, who is now set to sentence Trump on July 11, four days before he formally accepts the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination at its convention in Milwaukee.
Johnson, who had joined other MAGA Republicans in showing up at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse in order to denounce the proceedings against his party’s candidate for the White House, was reportedly sympathetic to Trump’s grievances during the call.
The day after the verdict was read out, the speaker was up early and appearing on Fox News’s Fox and Friends breakfast show insisting that the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court should “step in” to prevent Trump’s plight from undermining the American public’s faith in its justice system.
“I do believe the Supreme Court should step in. Obviously this is totally unprecedented and it’s dangerous to our system,” he said.
“This is diminishing the American people’s faith in our system of justice itself and, to maintain a republic, you have to have that, people have to believe that justice is fair, that there’s equal justice under law.
“They don’t see that right now and I think that the justices on the court – I know many of them personally – I think they’re deeply concerned about that, as we are.
“So I think they’ll set this straight, but it’s going to take a while.”
According to Politico, Johnson has since “been in talks with Judiciary committee chair and Trump ally Jim Jordan about using the appropriations process to target special counsel Jack Smith’s probe”, referring to the Justice Department attorney’s Trump indictments related to the illegal retention of classified documents and the former president’s role in the Capitol riot of January 6 2021.
The periodical points out that this represents a “softening” of the speaker’s stance after he previously baulked at a similar proposal from Georgia populist Marjorie Taylor Greene.
It also quotes two Republicans anxious about any threat of defunding Smith’s investigations, one of whom, Indiana representative Mike Simpson, said: “I don’t think it’s a good idea unless you can show that [prosecutors] acted in bad faith or fraud or something like that.
“They’re just doing their job – even though I disagree with what they did.”
